Biden will be Invited to Sit in a Cage Camera

2009-07-15 18:01

For almost a month the Georgian opposition has threatened to meet the Vice President of the USA Joe Biden with a great meeting. Meanwhile the protest wave is subsiding, the opposition is speaking of a dialog with the authorities more and more often. Before the visit of the distinguished guest the opposition has even decided to free Prospekt Rustaveli from cage cameras that became the confrontation symbol in those three months. Only in September, though. First they will show the cage cameras to Biden. Does it mean Washington has finally managed to reconcile the Georgian politicians?

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Tbilisi's tendency to a reduction in the intensity of emotions is obvious. It has become known that in a few days the political parties of Georgia will be financed from the budget. It was announced by the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament David Bakradze, informs GHN. He emphasized that the financing delay was related to the fact that because of the protest events the Georgian Parliament could not work in the routine mode and, consequently, had no possibility to make the required changes in the budget.

Earlier the opposition accused the authorities of deliberate suppression of unwanted parties. The Georgian law strictly stipulates the receipt of budget funds by the parties as the receipt of money from outside is forbidden by law. After some violent wrangles concerning the origin of the opposition money at the end of June Mikhail Saakashvili promised to present some «concrete initiatives» in order to make party financing more transparent.

Nothing is known of the President's initiatives yet, but the budget has found some money for the opponents. So the succession of scandals caused by the authorities' accusations of all opposition leaders of co-operation with pro-Russian Georgian businessmen and politicians are no longer burning.

This kind of time out in the internal political confrontation is likely to be related to the visit of the Vice President of the USA Joe Biden. Last month both the authorities (Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vano Merabishvili and Vice Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and one of the "rose revolution" ideologists Giga Bokeria) and opposition leaders (head of the "Alliance for Georgia" Irakly Alasania and the nonpartisan but very active Levan Gachechiladze who used to be member of the United Opposition) went to Washington. The head of the opposition party «Democratic Movement - United Georgia» Nino Burdjanadze is currently making a visit to Europe and the US.

What guidelines did Merabishvili and Bokeria receive in America? The Georgian radio station "Kommersant" is investigating this matter. According to the «Mteli kvira» newspaper, the government and part of the opposition are actively consulting on the dialog resumption issue. Behind the scenes they are whispering that the simultaneous visits of Irakly Alasania, Giga Bokeria and Vano Merabishvili to America are not accidental. The latter are said to have received some definite guidelines on how the authorities must behave. If the manifestations continue, the government will obviously have to make some concessions. Otherwise the opposition will have to be dispersed like two years ago. And this will surely mean its victory. According to «Mteli kvira», soon the government will start another round of negotiations with the opposition.